Page 4 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Things go viral in today’s wacky world
WITH COVID-19 and African swine fever di- rectly impacting or at least threatening Aus- tralia’s pork industry on more than a few fronts, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the various pandemics that have emerged over the years.
Hence why we must remain on high alert, be vigilant about biosecurity and be prepared to take instant steps to manage any threats that become reality.
the good news as well as the bad.
This month’s was titled ‘Farm animals and pan- demics: nine diseases that changed the world’.
But the realisation that the illness was jumping directly from pigs meant that villagers fled, and the army eventually moved in to cull the abandoned animals.
the world, but govern- ments took rapid action, and the epidemic was de- clared contained by July 2003.
When swine flu was identified in humans in California in April 2009, events moved fast.
When it comes to meat as a preferred protein source, all have had an impact on consumption of meat and consumer per- ception and expectation.
With this in mind, I re- cently took a peak at the new monthly series in the Guardian, which pub- lishes articles on farmed animals and explores the modern farming industry.
We want to know – where are the biggest changes in attitudes to animal welfare?
The disease, it emerged, had transferred from bats to pigs, in which it was only a mild disease.
By April 24 the US’ s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had uploaded the gene sequence of the virus to the internet, and by early May schools were being shut down.
The Guardian claims the series will look for
Who are the people dedicated to protecting our environment and ani- mals?”
But from infected pigs it was then a relatively easy jump to the humans that tended them.
“From the people of- fering sustainable solu- tions to feed us all to the stories of the smallest farms surviving in remote areas.
Predictably, it listed the three most closely associ- ated with pigs and pork – Nipah virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (or SARS) and H1N1 swine flu – along with bovine tuberculosis, Q fever, Bo- vine spongiform enceph- alopathy (also known as mad cow disease or BSE), H5N1 bird flu, H7N7 bird flu and Middle East respiratory syndrome (or MERS).
H1N1 swine flu
Delivering Specialist Agribusiness Public Relations Skills that will build your business, enhance your brand, promote your products and sell your services, all backed by unsurpassed professionalism, experience and track record.
Contact Brendon Cant
M 0417 930 536 E brendon@iinet.net.au
“Unsurprisingly, the cephalitis. The virus spread around must grapple with.
A single, easy, on-feed application to mum that aids in preventing coccidiosis in piglets.
Reduce handling, save time and save money with Forcix SW.
Forcix SW is available from BEC Feed Solutions.
Visit becfeedsolutions.com.au
Article author Tom Levitt introduced his subject thus: “Pandemics almost always begin with the transmission of an animal microbe to a human,” writes biologist Nathan Wolfe in the in- troduction to The Viral Storm.
Cant Comment by BRENDON CANT
In humans the disease can cause acute respira- tory infection and fatal encephalitis, and has an estimated case fatality rate of 40-75%.
In June, the WHO de- clared a pandemic.
This year has been, more than most, a mani- festation of that fact.
east Asia and Africa. Research has
This summer, several months after COVID-19 exploded into the world, the UN published a report looking more closely at our relation to zoonotic disease.
So, let’s take a look at what the article details in terms of Nipah virus, SARS and H1N1 swine f lu.
It is believed to have originated in bats before being transmitted to hu- mans through an inter- mediate host species, the masked palm civet.
sug- gested the development of the virus was aided by the live export trade in pigs between the US and Mexico, before it eventu-
Wildlife, and our in- creasing proximity to wildlife, is the most common source, but farmed animals are not only original sources, they can be transmission sources or bridging hosts, carrying the infection from the wild to humans.
Nipah virus
China initially kept quiet about the outbreak, but subsequently apolo- gised for the delay.
While dealing purpose- fully, methodically and scientifically with pan- demics is problematic enough, deftly dealing with much of the wacky social media commentary and fake news that quickly goes viral and takes on a life of its own, is a trou- bling task industry in- siders and stakeholders
The sudden emergence of a new disease in Ma- laysia in 1999 caused panic.
Scientists were able to track the virus back to horseshoe bats, which passed the virus on to masked palm civets, which are sold in Chinese markets and also farmed.
Initially, human deaths in the small village of Sungai Nipah were thought to have been caused by Japanese en-
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
The disease, which appears to have made the jump to humans in Mexico, quickly spread to the rest of the world.
vast majority of animals involved in historic zo- onotic events or current zoonosis are domestic (livestock, domesticated wildlife and pets), which is logical as the contact rates are high.”
First detected (Guang- dong province, southern China) in humans in 2002, with the first Sars outbreak was an early warning sign of the lethal dangers of coronavirus jumping from animals to humans.
The majority of deaths have occurred in south-
ally jumped to humans.
Page 4 – Australian Pork Newspaper, October 2020
www.porknews.com.au
ECHV Technology